From RealCloth to RealHair

Carlo
Lanzotti kindly allowed us to
"interview" him on the 23rd November
2002. This is the full transcript from the
conversation:

B: Carlo - tell us a little
about yourself:

C: I'm a 3d animator and a programmer...

B: Tell us about Dynadream:

C: DynaDream
is the evolution of a little 3d animation
and special effects company that i've driven
for a couple of years.
It is composed of four people. Acutally
we are working on a 3d animated short film
that we are trying to make completely with
Realsoft3D
and the various plugins that i'm developing.
More info on this later.

B: Do you have any ideas
for future plugins ?

C: There are some other ideas, but nothing
really planned. One might be a character
rigging tool...

B: Obviously - RS users
are keen to know the status on your plugins..

C: Well, actually RealCloth
is 95% ready for the release.RealBoom
and RealWobble
are ready for the first beta (I'll release
it after the first release version of RealCloth).RealHair,
instead, requires much more work and it's
full development will continue after the
release of the above 3 plugins. Anyway there
is an alpha version ready, i'll show some
tests made with it soon.

C: Because 3DsMax
and other 3d apps already have thousands
of plugins written for them :-) (or because
i really love Realsoft3D....)

B: How has the feedback
from RS been ? Is it good from a developers
point of view ?

C: I never got from other companies such
good feedback. They (Realsoft's peoples)
are always open and fast to give answers
to our questions.

B: What would you like
to see given to developers from RS ?

C: We developers only want a good SDK manual!
:-)

B: Realsoft as a community
- are they a helpful bunch ?

C: Much helpful!

B: Have you had help from
anyone else to write the plugs or wish to
credit anyone ?

C: No, there are no other people that really
helped me write the plugins.
There are only a lot of people that encourage
me during the development process, and obviously
that helped me testing the plugs.

B: Have the RS users been
helpful at all ? Do you require a hand to
write manuals etc ?

C: A lot useful, expecially the people
that helped me beta test the first versions
of RealCloth.
Some rs3d users have helped me with the
manual and 3d models, many thanks to all!

B: Version 4.5 - how has
it impacted on your development ?

C: In no way, i've only linked another
rs3d library to my plugins and recompiled.

B: How hard is it to write
a plugin for RS ?

C: Well, good question. It is not too hard,
but understanding the whole environment
the first time is a little hard.

B: Would you recommend
others to write plugins ?

C: We hope that the RS3D development community
will grow.
Some recommendations to any who wish to
start writing plugins for RS3D:

A big quantity of coffee :-)

Ask many questions as needed.

Don't get frustrated. (Sometimes you
will be....)

B: Do you interface much
with Allessandro* ?

C: Not too much.(He, like me, is too much
busy :-) )

*Ed: Alessandro Tasora - Developer of Chrono
and Phenomena

B: Does RS open architecture
make it easier to write for ?

C: Too much easier, from my point of view
Realsoft's peoples are simply a genius!

B: Is the SDK useful from
a developers point of view ?

C: It is a must.

B: And finally, has the
documentation in 4.5 helped you ?

C: Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but the
new documentation and the reference manual
(finally we have it!) are well written.
It needs only a good 'search' tool.

Carlo, thank you very much for taking time
out to talk about Dynadream with us. We
all wish you the best of luck with the plugins
and look forward eagerly for their release.